Small hotel Titchwell Manor in Norfolk

05 Oct Small hotel Titchwell Manor in Norfolk

My mum and dad bought the hotel when I was nine years old so growing up in the hotel and it’s been obviously a huge part of my life and my family’s life I’ve took more of the control over the hotel as a whole, still with their support and input, but previous to that from 2002 I was Head Chef

I guess from me being so passionate from the kitchen side and being lucky enough to have the support of my parents to sort of express that passion as much as I like so food’s always been a huge part of the hotel I would say with the sort of high-end dining and wine and stuff the young professionals out of London is a big market for us but we try and appeal to as wide a spectrum as we can, which I think most hotels and restaurants do One of our big aims when doing the decor at the hotel which we had quite a major re-vamp about eight years ago was to really stand out from the crowd One of my big tips for people deciding they want to do something like that is if it is a big project – we were doing nearly all the public areas – is to take on an experienced designer someone who you like their work I think having a strong digital presence is really important in the modern day

Some of the sites for example like MailChimp make it very easy to create quite a slick-looking and professional mail-shot that you can be sending if you are only doing two or three a year So we are quite lucky that about 15% of our bookings are through OTAs and also I think because we’re more a boutique hotel with individually-styled bedrooms our website’s quite important I still think most people would go from bookingcom to look at the hotel’s website Unique things we’ve come up with have been our summer fete and a similar thing we also do is our supper club

Both events they’re not really about making a lot of money out of them but it’s more something positive to PR One of the areas we’re currently looking to grow, along with many areas of the business, is weddings We’ve always been quite careful about doing too many weddings but as a whole financially for the business it’s a great benefit if you can be doing weddings throughout the year Breakfast is a huge part of any bed-and-breakfast/hotel but a simple thing which is easy to replicate is we make all our own granolas, three types of granola, we make two fresh compotes daily but like I said it’s the importance I think the lasting impression on the guests that’s equally as important as their evening meal Without a doubt the most important thing in a successful business and hotel running the way you want it to is your staff

I feel more than anything just making sure they feel valued and I really feel as a family business and you know I appreciate how hard people have worked for us over the years